'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'... Director Tomas Alfredson Speaks On Impossibility To Film

When it comes to literary adaptations on any novel I always ask "Is it worth it?" By that I'm implying the need to go research the book, read if interested, wait to see the trailer and wait for the film to be released in theaters. All based on the notion that the film must inspire and respect the core themes on the page? John Le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy provided this exact problem to director Tomas Alfredson, who's method is both brave and into the wild where he admits: "We agreed that this was probably a totally impossible book to turn into a film".

I could go on for hours praising Swedish director Tomas Alfredson for some marvelous work in the vampire horror film (with a tinge of sweet innocent friendship) Let The Right One In, based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Certainly not a traditional vampire-horror film due to the budding friendship and romance (if you will depending on your persective) between Oscar and Eli. Reception on the film has been large on an international level because even Hollywood remade the film, Let Me In from director Matt Reeves, which also inspired some interesting ideas and themes not entirely tackled in Alfredson's adaptation. Such reception provided Alfredson "with offers to direct another horror movie. This frustrated him for two reasons. One, because most of the films sounded horrific for all the wrong reasons ("Rabid Zombie Gorillas 4 and stuff like that") and two, because he'd never considered Let the Right One In to be a horror movie anyway."

Now adapting the John Le Carré novel for British production company Working Title, the film is "a study of people who live in the shadows and depend on one another for survival, although in this case they are spies, not bloodsuckers." Some worry that the classic 1979 TV series would overshadow the remake and that it's "almost blasphemous to introduce anyone other than Alec Guinness as George Smiley, and that it might as well be a confused Swedish non-horror director who would go out and explore this strange idea." Based on the trailer alone, I doubt we'll be hearing much of this. Even Le Carré once said "that turning his books into films was akin to turning a cow into an Oxo-cube. With Tinker, the film-makers faced arguably the biggest bovine of them all. "We agreed that this was probably a totally impossible book to turn into a film," Alfredson admits, recalling his first meeting with the producers."

On Alfredson's strange journey, having "worked in kids' TV, joined a comedy troupe and shot a bawdy mockumentary (Screwed in Tallinn) about bachelors in search of Estonian girlfriends", he admits that relocating from Sweden to London, learning "a new language and the intricate protocol of Le Carré's world" that there's a simple truth in accepting and adaptating to change:

"There's only one way to get through it and that's to be totally open about your ignorance. Everyone's been really helpful, patient and understanding. But sometimes you have to accept being addressed as if you're half-deaf."

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is directed by Tomas Alfredson based on the novel by John Le Carré. Starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy. The film opens in US theaters December 9, 2011.

Source: The Guardian

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[thesis statement]

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[David Murphy]

For a completely different review of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - click on http://www.davidmurph.wordpress.com